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That was the beginning of the famous ride from the Las Casas mountains to the Roydon range, and all the distance across the Roydon valley. It started with a five-mile sprint literally five miles of hot racing in which each horse did its best. And in that five miles Gray Peter would most unquestionably have won had not one bit of luck fallen the mare.
Looking back, Andrew could see that the marshal had stripped away every vestige of his pack. He followed that example with a groan. And still Gray Peter gained. It was the last great effort for the stallion. Before them rose the foothills of the Roydon mountains; behind them the Las Casas range was lost in mist.
Once he said, "When my son was at the University at Salamanca," and again, "My son will go out with Don Nicholas de Ovando." Juan Lepe, sitting in a brown study, roused at that. "If you go, senor, you will find good memories around the name of Las Casas." The young man said, "I will strive in no way to darken them, senor." He might be a year or two the younger side of thirty.
It is pleasanter to dwell upon those points in which the brave and humane Las Casas surpassed his age, and prophesied against it, than upon those which he held in common with it, as he acquiesced in its instinctive life.
The good Las Casas declares that in consequence of the oppressions of the Spaniards, in ten years, more than sixty thousand of the natives of Nicaragua perished. About this time Francisco Pizarro had embarked in a hair-brained enterprise for the conquest of Peru, on the western coast of South America.
Nations advanced in civilization, of which we discover traces on the banks of lake Teguyo and in the Casas grandes of the Rio Gila, might have sent some tribes eastward into the open countries of the Missouri and the Ohio, where the climate differs little from that of New Mexico; but in South America, where the great flux of nations has continued from north to south, those who had long enjoyed the mild temperature of the back of the equinoctial Cordilleras no doubt dreaded a descent into burning plains bristled with forests, and inundated by the periodical swellings of rivers.
Some time in this same year Las Casas was ordained priest. We should like to know how he came to take this step, but he tells us nothing about it. He threw himself into his new duties with the same energy that he had used in his business, and began at once to teach the Indians, as the Dominicans were doing.
After a time Las Casas sent for Luis Cancer, who when he came brought with him a contract, signed by the governor, securing the practical independence of the Indians of The Land of War. Word now reached Las Casas that both the Bishop of Guatemala and Alvarado had come to Santiago, and he resolved to go down and meet them.
The good Queen little knew how far her officers were from treating them as she had commanded. Las Casas does not seem to have felt any particular pity for the Indians in the beginning. Like the rest of the adventurers, he had come to seek his fortune in the New World, where there seemed such wonderful chances to grow rich.
The multitudes of these insects, however, have been generated by Indian filthiness. They do not disturb the inmates of those casas where cleanliness prevails. Having letters of introduction to General Valléjo and Mr. Leese, I delivered them this morning. General Valléjo is a native Californian, and a gentleman of intelligence and taste far superior to most of his countrymen.
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